Editor’s note: This commentary is by Bob Orleck, who is a retired pharmacist and lawyer. He served as an assistant attorney general under Vermont Attorney General Jerome Diamond.
[T]he following is a critical comment on the remarks of Sen. Joe Benning as to what motivated his sponsoring of S.241 – An act relating to personal possession and cultivation of cannabis and the regulation of commercial cannabis establishments.
An audio of his words on the issue were reported by Mark Johnson’s article entitled “Inside the Golden Bubble: Unusual Alliances and Motives Help Pot Bill Pass.”
The first few lines of the article read: “Unusual alliances and motives mixed this week in the passage of the pot legalization bill by the Legislature’s upper chamber. Before the Senate voted Wednesday, Sen. President Pro Tem John Campbell predicted the bill would squeak through 15-14. It would end up being approved 16-13 on that day. (Supporters picked up an additional vote on final passage Thursday.) One of the 16 voting in favor was Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia/Orange, who said fellow Republicans gave him grief for co-sponsoring the bill, S.241. Recently, a conservative talk show host asked him if favoring pot legalization wasn’t a “strange position” for a Republican to take.” The writer summarized the reason Sen. Benning indicated for his position: “For Benning, however, legalization is not about politics. It’s personal.”
That may be the reason Sen. Benning proposed this legislation but as a representative of the people, such a decision should have been based on public safety, in the best interests of children and what is good for the state of Vermont. Now as a lawyer, Sen. Benning has proposed a bill that violates federal law and also, according to many experts in medicine, law enforcement and education, will jeopardize many of the state’s citizens, especially the young and the mentally ill. The “drug stores” created under the legislation will increase consumption of marijuana and much of that consumption will come from “drug tourists” who will come, buy and drive impaired while here and when they leave. It will endanger us all!
But for that one summer night in New Jersey that sealed his destiny, Sen. Benning might now be Joe Benning, best selling fiction author.
Sen. Joe Benning’s story is one of an ideological young man who devotes his thoughts and energies to insure that the same injustice this young band member faced having been improperly charged with possession of marijuana, happens to no one else in Vermont. Mind you this did not occur in Vermont and under current law probably can no longer. It happened in New Jersey and for some reason I can’t quite explain, that does not surprise me. 🙂
I have a bit of a problem with the course he took to remedy the wrong. He could have, as a lawyer, devoted his work energies to insuring that police officers selected to wear the blue uniform are of the highest moral character, are properly trained and educated to insure that such abuses won’t happen. It was not the marijuana being illegal that caused him the problem. It was the officers who did not respect the rule of law. If he had directed his energies in this way he would have probably been surprised to find that the vast majority of our police are caring, quality individuals who would never intentionally violate anyone’s rights. The few he might have found could possibly have been stopped before it was too late for some poor innocent band member.
When I test the thinking here I wonder what would have happened if New Jersey police back then had done something akin to what state trooper Paul Lawrence did but it was a different substance they planted to make an arrest and the young Joe Benning was arrested for possession of heroin. Would he under these facts still have been motivated to go to law school and when he graduated would his 40-year quest for justice for those falsely implicated band members have led him to be advocating for the legalization of heroin? Logically it would if we follow his thinking on why he pursued this legislation!
There are more logical issues with his decision to introduce S.241. In Vermont, marijuana has been decriminalized for some time and those who personally possess face only a small fine. The situation he faced then could not happen in Vermont under those facts and the current state of our law. After the passage of S.241 such an outcome is more possible. The state licensed stores will be the only places where legal marijuana can be purchased. The personal grower and user, however, can be subject to the legal process if this bill were to become law. So the band member is not in jeopardy today but might be tomorrow after the law is passed. I don’t think this is what Sen. Benning wants.
I can now visualize this young man who is practicing with his band at someone else’s house, spies this cute girl and goes outside with her accompanied by someone else’s dog and gets framed for having marijuana not bought in a state authorized store. Following the storyline of our senator’s life, history repeats and the war on drugs continues as he is charged, cleared and struggles for years to gets his record expunged. This is so bad for he just might end up going to law school as well and miss his real calling whatever that might be.
If Joe Benning was not a lawmaker his story would be good reading in Reader’s Digest. Maybe instead of sponsoring this bill because of his negative experience with the law, it would have been better for the good senator to have gotten counseling on the way his treatment bothered him so he might have avoided a lot of this pain, especially that of becoming a lawyer. But for that one summer night in New Jersey that sealed his destiny, Sen. Benning might now be Joe Benning, best selling fiction author.
I can see why your fellow Republicans gave you grief.
